For Whom the Nobel Tolls: Tomas Tranströmer’s “The Blue House”
Essay - “The lines, like long, rolling ocean waves on a cold Baltic sea, create their own reasons, their own rhythm, their own understanding. Anaphora is used, as Whitman did, to summon us to the great historical pageant of life, of happenings beyond our immediate knowledge.” 4/28/2024
Essay - “The lines, like long, rolling ocean waves on a cold Baltic sea, create their own reasons, their own rhythm, their own understanding. Anaphora is used, as Whitman did, to summon us to the great historical pageant of life, of happenings beyond our immediate knowledge.” 4/28/2024Rossetti’s Notebook (1862-1869)
Poetry - “Nonetheless, a worm/had eaten its way through any number/of Gabriel’s lines, some of his best./He had to reconstruct them from memory,/or compose them anew.” 4/19/2024
Poetry - “Nonetheless, a worm/had eaten its way through any number/of Gabriel’s lines, some of his best./He had to reconstruct them from memory,/or compose them anew.” 4/19/2024The Creases Between Utterances: Jenny Xie’s “The Rupture Tense” Criticism - “Whether [Jenny] Xie’s volume was long in the making or came out in a fiery burst (maybe both, by parts?), it is a work of substance, worthy of its current high reputation.” 4/14/2024
Criticism - “Whether [Jenny] Xie’s volume was long in the making or came out in a fiery burst (maybe both, by parts?), it is a work of substance, worthy of its current high reputation.” 4/14/2024Let It Be Known
Poetry - “On its dead claws and back, mottled and plain,/from a long beach whose gulls roost on an edge,/Inscrutable.” 4/12/2024
Poetry - “On its dead claws and back, mottled and plain,/from a long beach whose gulls roost on an edge,/Inscrutable.” 4/12/2024“I ask your forgiveness; I am a mountain tiger”
Poetry - “Why does she ask forgiveness?/For what and from whom?/Why does she call herself/a mountain tiger?” 4/5/2024
Poetry - “Why does she ask forgiveness?/For what and from whom?/Why does she call herself/a mountain tiger?” 4/5/2024Edgar Kunz’s “Tap Out” and “Fixer”
Criticism - “Edgar Kunz, the author of Tap Out and Fixer, does not refer to himself specifically as blue collar, proletarian, or working class. Well-meaning others, such as mentor Edward Hirsch, do so, referring to Tap Out as ‘gutsy, tough-minded, working-class poems of memory and initiation.'” 3/31/2024
Criticism - “Edgar Kunz, the author of Tap Out and Fixer, does not refer to himself specifically as blue collar, proletarian, or working class. Well-meaning others, such as mentor Edward Hirsch, do so, referring to Tap Out as ‘gutsy, tough-minded, working-class poems of memory and initiation.'” 3/31/2024Life Cycle of the Cabbage White Butterfly
Poetry - “Examining for mixed motives the flaws/That turned their city-cousins ash-/Grey. She labels one Snow-in-Ghana,/As though she doesn’t trust her own desire.” 3/29/2024
Poetry - “Examining for mixed motives the flaws/That turned their city-cousins ash-/Grey. She labels one Snow-in-Ghana,/As though she doesn’t trust her own desire.” 3/29/2024The Return Poetry - “I am alive and you’re alive, and hope exists,/but I have to bid farewell to these words of mine,/which I will never shout, because I’m but a man. “ 3/22/2024
Poetry - “I am alive and you’re alive, and hope exists,/but I have to bid farewell to these words of mine,/which I will never shout, because I’m but a man. “ 3/22/2024On Arthur Sze’s “The Silk Dragon II”
Criticism - “Whatever one may say about the People’s Republic of China today, it once offered the model of the poet-emperor, as well as poets employed in political life, wedding governance to lyric spirit.” 3/17/2024
Criticism - “Whatever one may say about the People’s Republic of China today, it once offered the model of the poet-emperor, as well as poets employed in political life, wedding governance to lyric spirit.” 3/17/2024The Indian and Draw Near, White Man
Poetry - “And working together, what might we become?/citizens of a single kingdom./you could find it all in the palm of your hand/alongside Indian, yellow and black.” 3/15/2024
Poetry - “And working together, what might we become?/citizens of a single kingdom./you could find it all in the palm of your hand/alongside Indian, yellow and black.” 3/15/2024Walking the Butter Mill Trail Poetry - “I sometimes think I don’t belong here/in this wood–that the tree’s knots/are frowns grown for me, or the leaf crunch/is a worm cracking a crass joke at my expense.” 3/8/2024
Poetry - “I sometimes think I don’t belong here/in this wood–that the tree’s knots/are frowns grown for me, or the leaf crunch/is a worm cracking a crass joke at my expense.” 3/8/2024Turkey Buzzard Poetry - “Here on a narrow one-lane/overgrown with cattails and ivy/the circle of turkey buzzards draws closer.” 3/1/2024
Poetry - “Here on a narrow one-lane/overgrown with cattails and ivy/the circle of turkey buzzards draws closer.” 3/1/2024Bianca Stone, What Is Otherwise Infinite
Criticism - “By that token, perhaps Bianca Stone is just the poet for our times. Her verses wrestle with a dirty angel, one that bites and kicks. There is no snow-white falcon in her pages. But she does not quit.” 2/25/2024
Criticism - “By that token, perhaps Bianca Stone is just the poet for our times. Her verses wrestle with a dirty angel, one that bites and kicks. There is no snow-white falcon in her pages. But she does not quit.” 2/25/2024Show and Tell
Poetry - “In the actual, from which another life/Is straining to burst, to set out in navigation,/Or be swallowed by demons in the leaves.” 2/19/2024
Poetry - “In the actual, from which another life/Is straining to burst, to set out in navigation,/Or be swallowed by demons in the leaves.” 2/19/2024Smart Fish Don’t Bite
Poetry - “One of these days,/the guy with the rod won’t be so kind./This is why we hear about the liars,/hypocrites and crooks like Spiro Agnew,/Richard Nixon, Jimmy Swaggart,/Bernie Madoff, Sam Bankman-Fried…” 2/16/2024
Poetry - “One of these days,/the guy with the rod won’t be so kind./This is why we hear about the liars,/hypocrites and crooks like Spiro Agnew,/Richard Nixon, Jimmy Swaggart,/Bernie Madoff, Sam Bankman-Fried…” 2/16/2024Journey Through Mountains
Poetry - “So many stars and mountains, crests and sky,/Are we not fools to think that we can know/What underlies such intricate designs?” 2/9/2024
Poetry - “So many stars and mountains, crests and sky,/Are we not fools to think that we can know/What underlies such intricate designs?” 2/9/2024
